Modern consumer electronics, such as smart phones, personal digital assistants, and location based services devices, as well as enterprise electronics, such as servers and storage arrays, are packing more integrated circuits into an ever shrinking physical space with expectations for decreasing cost. Every new generation of integrated circuits with increased operating frequency, performance and the higher level of large scale integration have underscored the need for back-end semiconductor manufacturing to provide more solutions involving the integrated circuit itself. Numerous technologies have been developed to meet these requirements. Some of the research and development strategies focus on new package technologies while others focus on improving the existing and mature package technologies. Both approaches may include additional processing of the integrated circuits to better match the targeted package.
The continued emphasis in the semiconductor technology is to create improved performance semiconductor devices at competitive prices. This emphasis over the years has resulted in extreme miniaturization of semiconductor devices, made possible by continued advances of semiconductor processes and materials in combination with new and sophisticated device designs. Numerous integrated circuit designs are aimed for mixed-signal designs by incorporating analog functions. One of the major challenges in the creation of analog processing circuitry (using digital processing procedures and equipment) is that a number of the components that are used for analog circuitry are large in size and are therefore not readily integrated into integrated circuits. The main components that offer a challenge in this respect are capacitors and inductors, since both these components are, for typical analog processing circuits, of considerable size. In response to the demands for improved package performance and analog circuitry integration, packaging manufacturers may prepare the integrated circuit for packaging as well as provide analog circuitry integration onto the integrated circuit.
With the rapid migration of on-chip interconnect from aluminum (Al) to copper (Cu), the demand for off-chip interconnects is increasing. The conventional gold wire bonding technologies are facing challenges with bare copper pads because pad oxidation inhibits a mature bonding process.
With the increase in integration and shrinking geometries, has come a massive increase in frequencies that the integrated circuit must deal with. Many of the latest digital circuits require a phase lock loop (PLL) to stay synchronized with other signaling devices. The discrete analog components, required for some of the higher frequencies, are extremely large when compared to the digital logic that they support. In order to satisfy the demand for these necessary components, semiconductor technologies have added additional layers and special processing that increase cost and reduce the overall yield.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system with post-passivation interconnection and integration providing low cost manufacturing, improved yields, reduce the integrated circuit package dimensions, and provide flexible connectivity and integration configurations. In view of the ever-increasing need to save costs and improve efficiencies, it is more and more critical that answers be found to these problems.
In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to save costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.